The ASUS GeForce GTX 680 Direct CU II TOP uses the company's famous triple slot cooler to bring low temperatures and low noise to the GeForce GTX 680. ASUS has also increased the clocks of the card significantly, which gives it a healthy performance boost, for a reasonable $20 price premium.

i have been thinking about adding a table of "same gpu" cards to the oc section to compare max OC. maybe i can add a similar table to temperatures

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Correct me if I am wrong, but the "max OC" depends of the "quality of the chip" itself? , so maybe actually to compare to another cards isnt really significant, since the same card model can maybe be more or less oc using another batch?

Correct me if I am wrong, but the "max OC" depends of the "quality of the chip" itself? , so maybe actually to compare to another cards isnt really significant, since the same card model can maybe be more or less oc using another batch?

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you are correct, and yes my sample size is relatively small, but it is something that users do look at (they have to jump back and forth between reviews now)

It seems that new drivers are helping the GTX680 stand out a little more than on launch. 5% higher clock than reference and almost 10% higher performance.

And I'm always amazed at these non reference cards from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, etc. Higher clocks, lower power and thermals, lower noise, not much higher price. For only $20 more than reference it's awesome. Probably will be higher on shelves tho.

Great review! Your benchmarks and comments are noise are the best in class and what has got me addicted to reading all the reviews on techpowerup.

Hopefully the 580 Direct CU ii's will come down in price, they are still $500+ at all US vendors. Powercolor 7950 PCS+ also looks good, but I'd trade the added performance for the extra couple dBa of silence from 580 DCii, especially if a bit cheaper.

Unlike its nemesis, the AMD Radeon HD 7970, Nvidia's new card doesn't require any application-specific software profiles for power management; it's all done using hardware monitors, which track power, temperature, and utilization and react almost instantaneously.

In ZeroCore Power when your monitor goes into standby ( the computer's obviously idling at the desktop ) the card goes into a hardcore power saving mode, in which case consumes very little, pretty close to none ( what's ~5W ? ).

nVIDIA doesn't do the same thing.
They have power saving features, but not this kind.

Unlike its nemesis, the AMD Radeon HD 7970, Nvidia's new card doesn't require any application-specific software profiles for power management; it's all done using hardware monitors, which track power, temperature, and utilization and react almost instantaneously.

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looks like the good people at the verge didn't understand how nvidia's dynamic oc works. first, it is a software solution, not hardware. second, it is only active during gaming, for which it provides _increased_ clocks when possible.

Wizzard said, "ASUS has informed us that this will be fixed in the retail version of the card."
Interesting and telling that these are still/may be not even in the retail boxes or yet moving to market?

When the rubber meets the road there's like 7 title's that the 680GTX provides clear advantages in Fps and real game play; Crysis II, Shogun2, Dragon Age, Alan Wake and most of all BF3 @ 1920x. If BF3 is what you intend to play, it's justification to step up another $40 (9%) to get 21%. The GTX 680 has Hardrest and Skyrim as wins, but not a big difference by 2650x. While A/P and Metro are 7970 titles. I'd like to see the summary only worked up with those titles as that give a clearer synopsis of the "real meat" in such a competive evaluation.

I will say Nvidia has the most to gain when upcoming drivers releases, as they have traditional gaming optimizations' within Kepler, and then fine tuning the dynamic clock profiles so they have room to improve on two fronts.

The unknown is will the OC profile provided in such OC custom’s, give up all that much more. I find it odd that W1zzard only showed what his extra 6% OC provided on COD4 (?) not a title stressing anyone’s true game play. I’d like to see the original Crysis, BF3, and Sryrim to evaluate the gains from overclocking. Any of these GTX680... are more get one... and plug and play; because OC'n limits are still curtailed based on dynamically adjusted clock/voltage against the rendering load, temperature, and other factors.

While if/when the card is in the E-tail channel and sticking to a $520 price there will be a clear advantage, although with a Sapphire (11197-01-40G) 7970 OC (Dual BIOS provides 1GHz core/1450MHz memory) for $470 –AR $10 w/FS at Egg. That can be added to the cart and be on the door step on Monday, the $50 extra and wins extinguish rapidly.

I see 3 reviews of the DCUII online today and none of them tested the card with the VGA Hotwire feature of the Rampage IV Extreme.
What's up with that ?
I'm pretty sure that Asus would like to see it included in the reviews.